Four Years in Rebel Capitals | Page 9

and the post commandant was like the public mind.
Rumors were again rife of raids over the Potomac, with Henry A. Wise or Ben McCullough at their head; nightmares of plots to rob the Treasury and raze the White House sat heavy on the timid; while extremists manufactured long-haired men, with air guns, secreted here and there and sworn to shoot Mr. Lincoln, while reading his inaugural.
All night long, orderlies were dashing to and fro at breakneck speed; and guard details were marching to all points of possible danger. Day dawn saw a light battery drawn up on G street facing the Treasury, guns unlimbered and ready for action; while infantry held both approaches to the Long Bridge across the Potomac. Other bodies of regulars were scattered at points most available for rapid concentration; squadrons of cavalry were stationed at the crossings of several avenues; and all possible precautions were had to quell summarily any symptoms of riot.
These preparations resembling more the capital of Mexico than that of the United States, were augury of the peace of the administration thus ushered in! Happily, they were needless. All who remember that inauguration will recall the dull, dead quiet with which the day passed off. The very studiousness of precaution took away from the enjoyment of the spectacle even; and a cloud was thrown over the whole event by the certainty of trouble ahead. The streets were anxious and all gayety showed effort, while many lowering faces peeped at the procession from windows and housetops.
It was over at last. The new man had begun with the new era; and Staple and I had finished our chasse at Wormley's dinner table, when that worthy's pleasant, yellow face peered in at the door.
As we jumped into the carriage awaiting us and Wormley banged the door, a knot of loungers ran up to say good-bye. They were all men-about-town; and if not very dear to each other, it was still a wrench to break up associations with those whose faces had been familiar to every dinner and drive and reception for years. We had never met but in amity and amid the gayest scenes; now we were plunging into a pathless future. Who could tell but a turn might bring us face to face, where hands would cross with a deadly purpose; while the hiss of the Mini��-ball sang accompaniment in place of the last galop that Louis Weber had composed.
"Better stay where you are, boys!"--"You're making a bad thing of it!"--"Don't leave us Styles, old fellow!"--"You'll starve down South, sure!"--were a few of the hopeful adieux showered at us.
"Thank you all, just the same, but I think we won't stay," Staple responded. "What would 'the house' do? God bless you, boys! Good-bye, Jim!"
CHAPTER II.
"THE CRADLE OF THE CONFEDERACY."
Evening had fallen as evening can fall only in early Washington spring. As we plunged into the low, close cabin of the Acquia Creek steamer of that day, there was a weak light, but a strong smell of kerosene and whisky. Wet, steamy men huddled around the hot stove, talking blatant politics in terms as strong as their liquor. So, leaving the reek below, we faced the storm on deck, vainly striving to fix the familiar city lights as they faded through the mist and rain; more vainly still peering into the misty future, through driving fancies chasing each other in the brain.
The journey south in those days was not a delight. Its components were discomfort, dust and doubt. As we rattled through at gray of dawn, Richmond was fast asleep, blissfully ignorant of that May morning when she would wake to find herself famous, with the eyes of all the civilized world painfully strained toward her. But from Petersburg to Wilmington the country side was wide awake and eager for news. Anxious knots were at every station and water tank, and not overclean hands were thrust into the windows, with the cry: "Airy paper?" Sometimes yellow faces, framed with long, lank hair, peered in at the doors; while occasional voices indescribably twanged: "You'uns got any news from thar 'nauggeration?"
Staple's ready, while not very accurate, replies were hungrily swallowed; proffered papers of any date were clutched and borne as prizes to the learned man of each group, to be spelled out to the delectation of open-mouthed listeners. For the whole country had turned out, with its hands in its breeches pockets, and so far it seemed content to gape and lounge about the stations. The men, to all appearance, were ready and eager; but at that time no idea of such a thing as preparation had entered their minds.
It is difficult, at best, to overcome the vis inerti? of the lower-class dweller along the South Atlantic seaboard; but when he is first knocked in the head with so